Unreflective Mirror
by Death's Pet Rat
Summary: Chris doesn't die, but ends up in the changed future where a normal, happy, well adjusted version of himself already exists. Will there be room in this new world for Chris?


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First fic, it sounded much better in my head...

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**Unreflective Mirror **

Chris lay on the bed, feeling his life slowly drain away as his blood seeped onto his parents' bed. The pain had lessened now, which he couldn't help but be grateful for, even knowing that it signaled that his time was fast coming to an end. Death didn't worry him anymore. He was tired, tired of giving up everything to fight for what he believed in, for his family, and tired of losing just the same. All he wanted right now was to sink into peaceful oblivion.

His thoughts began to get foggy, and he wondered what would be waiting for him on the other side. If he had succeeded in saving Wyatt, then the world he remembered would no longer exist. Would he be excepted into an afterlife? But which one could possibly take him? Not the one of the time he was currently in, because right now there was another Chris being born, and there couldn't very well be two Chris' in one timeline, even if one was dead. So that left being dead in the future, which made just as little sense. Maybe he would cease to exist completely.

Chris found his mind growing lighter and his thoughts becoming blurred, and for the first time in a very long time he stopped worrying and just let go. He couldn't control anything anymore, and for once in his life that didn't scare him, all he felt was a calm acceptance.

His body was growing lighter and lighter, he could no longer feel any pain. All that was left was the sensation that he was floating. In fact, the more he thought about it the more real the feeling felt, and he slowly forced his eyes open. With a start he looked down, he _was_ him he could see his body slowly disappear, and with it he felt his consciousness drifting away as well.

He woke gradually to the sensation of falling, before begin jarred fully awake painfully by the inevitable landing that accompanied the fall. The impact of his body landing on a very solid floor sent pain shooting through, radiating out from his wound. Once he recovered from the shock of his rather abrupt landing, Chris mentally took stock of his body. All seemed to be in order, expect for the stab wound to his side that was now pulsating with a vengeance.

_So...probably not dead, right? _ _Not even the Elders were cruel enough to prologue the suffering of the already dead. But then what? _

Awareness crept in, and Chris distantly began to be able to make out the sound of voices. They sounded as if they were shouting at him from very far away. He felt as if he recognized them, but they still sounded faint, as if they were trying to reach him from miles away. Chris attempted to open his eyes, but his eyelids felt like they were held together with glue, and weighted with a two ton elephant on top of that.

As awareness cleared his senses, Chris began to lose the calm acceptance he had felt before, and his normal determination to fully understand the situation and control it returned in a rush. _Okay, first __step, where am I?_

The sounds around him were beginning to become more and more clear, but he still could not make out what they were saying or why they seemed so familiar.

With great effort he slowly peeled his eyes open to see through pain blurred vision the image of two figures leaning over him, in the midst of what appeared to be an intense discussion. There was a pause, and now the figures were no longer facing each other but staring down at him. He blinked slowly, hoping to clear his vision, but the action only made him feel more nauseous. One of them shouted, but he was pretty sure it wasn't at him.

A few seconds later, a familiar, although slightly more blurred that normal, gathering of blue orbs condensed into a third figure. He (at least Chris was pretty sure it was a he), quickly knelt down next to Chris, joining the others. At this point the pain in Chris's side was temporarily overriding any need to find out exactly what the hell was going on, he could deal with that later, if he survived. That is, assuming he _was _even alive at all.

Chris felt a familiar warm glow surround him and he felt the pain slowly disappear as flesh around the slash in his side slowly knotted itself back together. As the pain began to lessen and his thinking cleared, he sensed something familiar about the presence that was healing him.

Every magic creature had their own unique signature when using magic, and Chris had always been very good at sensing them. It wasn't a power exactly , just an extra sensitivity to the magic that constantly surrounded them. Chris had fine tuned his skill out of a necessity for survival under Wyatt's regime, but right now the answer to who it was that was healing him escaped his grasp.

He hadn't realized he had closed his eyes, but Chris as opened them now he couldn't helped but let out a sign of relief. That sign quickly turned into an involuntary yelp when he saw the face towering over his own. _Wyatt. _He fought to keep his panic under control as he felt terror rise up inside him. He quickly scrambled backwards, trying to get to his feet, trying to get as far away from Wyatt as he could. He searched the room wildly for an escape, not expecting to find one. What he did find stopped him in his tracks.

_Piper?_

_No, not Piper,_ he realized, _Mom._

Shewas standing next to Wyatt, and next to her was his Aunt Phoebe. These weren't the young witches he had left only moments ago. These were the women he had grown up with, who had raised him...except they were older than he ever remembered them being. He slowly turned to look back at Wyatt, who was looking at him with a worried smile.

Seeing that Chris was looking at him again, Wyatt said, "Hey, c'mon little bro, my face isn't that scary is it?" but it clearly did not come out as casually confident as he had intended, and sounded more nervous and confused than he probably would liked to let on. But staring at his face again, Chris noticed differences he could not believe he had not noticed before.

This Wyatt had short, neatly kept hair and whole a bright green polo shirt, not the typical long messy hair and all black attire of the Wyatt he remembered. _Had he really done it then, had he saved him? _He realized now why before he couldn't place the signature of the person healing him. It had seemed familiar because it was still Wyatt, but the signature had felt warmer than his Wyatt's, it felt good and pure and innocent. His Wyatt's had never had a presence like that, even when they were younger.

Recovering his bearings slightly, but still not really sure what to do, he mustered up a small, "Uh, hi..." before silence descended back in the living room of the manor.

He idly wondered how that had happened, hadn't he been dieing in the bedroom?

Before he could further contemplate the logistics of travel through time and space, Phoebe nervously cleared her throat.

"That's not Chris" she stated, sounding only mostly sure of herself.

"What?" Piper demanded.

"Look at him Piper, really look at him, if that's a shapeshifter he doesn't really look all that much like Chris"

As if to further prove her point, at that moment they heard the manor door open and a voice that sounded very much like his own shout, "Mom, Wyatt I'm home, where do you want me to put this stuff?" The figure walked into the room carrying a comical amount of shopping bags.

When the figure lowered the bags, Chris saw his own face staring back out at him.

TBC...


End file.
